Scammers using fake copyright infringement notices for profit

The creativity of online scammers knows no limits. When France passed a tough …

HADOPI, meet the internautes. The French "high authority" that oversees the country's three strikes anti-P2P file-sharing campaign is now being used by spammers and scammers who attempt to trick people out of their cash by accusing them of copyright violations.

The e-mails have appeared in recent days, purporting to come from France's Haute Autorité pour la diffusion des œuvres et la protection des droits sur Internet (HADOPI). This is the government group that will accept file-sharing complaints from movie and music rightsholders, then issue sanctions and fines to users, with Internet disconnection and blacklisting the ultimate penalty.

Scammers hope to capitalize on the publicity surrounding HADOPI, which has pledged to start sending out its first warning letters soon. The e-mails purport to come from HADOPI, charging that the recipient was detected sharing files, and they direct the user to website to make a payment.

"As expected, this is classic Internet," said HADOPI's Secretary General Éric Walter to Agence France Press yesterday. He advised recipients to exercise caution and not to turn over bank details or personal information.

Can't say we didn't see this one coming. It's basically the same as the US Copyright Group, except that they're simplifying the process even further. Gotta admit that usability-wise, a simple e-mail + clickthrough payment is much better than the complex process of filing stuff in court and getting a subpoena.

wouldnt this basically be legal in america, i mean you could send this out to anyone (just the the RIAA) then if they pay, ch-ching$$, if not when you would have to prove they did it, you just drop the lawsuit. (before you go to court, so they dont counter-sue)

Make a viral video, and you can have it copyrighted pretty easly, then put it out on a torrent website, and watch the connection storm start.

I know they are doing this already, but sounds like anyone could, for any reason.

I think that instead of just saying people should be careful Éric Walter should have gone into a bit more detail to help Jaques Crétin know the difference between an official shakedown demand and the fake sort.

I think that instead of just saying people should be careful Éric Walter should have gone into a bit more detail to help Jaques Crétin know the difference between an official shakedown demand and the fake sort.

Oh that's easy... the official one is real.

This whole situation reminds me of viacom legal yanking videos from youtube that viacom marketing put up, and blaming youtube for being diligent.

Definately predicted this scam months ago, though more so in the States with their ridiculous class action lawsuits. Any scammer can send out emails telling people to pay for their alleged infringing or get sued. All you need is a paypal account or what not. I'm frankly surprised that it's first been reported in France as opposed to NA.

hahahahahaha !!!!i do not mind this happening at all due to the fact that the RIAA/MPAA are the bigest thieves.the more and more scqammers there are the more screwed up it will be to send a real notice maybe ?

Definately predicted this scam months ago, though more so in the States with their ridiculous class action lawsuits. Any scammer can send out emails telling people to pay for their alleged infringing or get sued. All you need is a paypal account or what not. I'm frankly surprised that it's first been reported in France as opposed to NA.

You should have been expecting this YEARS ago, starting from when they instituted DMCA.

Who could use this that ISN'T a scammer? Isn't that the whole point of laws like this? Let people with lots of money try to extort more of it from people who can't afford a defense against their completely baseless accusations (which, without exception, they always are)?

That's terrible. IP protection could be corrupted by a bunch of money-grubbing thieves sending out letters just to see who will send them a check.

Oh, wait...

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Like so many others, I don't see the difference between these scammers and the lawyers that do this for a living. The irony? The scammers probably actually need the money more, whereas I don't see many lawyers on street corners...

EDIT: To those who think they are immune from litigation if they just 'play by the rules' - you've clearly not heard about notices being sent to networked PRINTERS.

Isn't it sort of hard to tell the scamming pirate government from the scamming scammers and the scammy p2p pirates and the scamming children of the scamming p2p pirate parents?

But like others have said above, if you aren't a pirate there is no need to Panic.

Untrue, as was mentioned in a previous comments section, there's loads of ways an innocent person can be accused of committing piracy with no legal recourse: WiFi hacking, friends/family on the owner's account (it's the owner who's held accountable), your IP being a fake IP thrown into a torrent list to try and invalidate the legal identifiability IPs therein (which doesn't work because, at least here in the UK, the burden of proof for innocence is on you).

Since the burden of proof that you're not a pirate is, insanely, on the accused rather than the accuser (this is as batshit insane as allowing detectives to point at a random person in the street and accuse them of leading the cosa nostra then demand that they prove that they don't) the accuser could just, if they felt thus inclined, pick IPs out of a hat and accuse them of piracy. With no real way to prove you're not a pirate you'd find yourself on pretty thin ice in court and you'd almost certainly lose thus paying both a settlement and lawyers fees. This is why people just pay up even if they have nothing to do with piracy. It's a losing battle.

Jesus fuck I wish just one of our legislators were able to understand the most basic things about computers and the internet. RIAA (BPI over here) etc can get away with this shit because the lawmakers are too Luddite to realise that were a similar extortion racket operated in real life, e.g. business representatives accusing a random person of theft and then taking reimbursement for stolen items without proof of theft at a wildly marked up value, they'd shit bricks at the ridiculous laws they've been swindled into passing.

Jesus fuck I wish just one of our legislators were able to understand the most basic things about computers and the internet. RIAA (BPI over here) etc can get away with this shit because the lawmakers are too Luddite to realize that were a similar extortion racket operated in real life, e.g. business representatives accusing a random person of theft and then taking reimbursement for stolen items without proof of theft at a wildly marked up value, they'd shit bricks at the ridiculous laws they've been swindled into passing.

Agreed. Unfortunately, most of those 80+ year old people we have in the Senate and House are too old to realize exactly how computers work, and still think it's the old "You can trace it just like a phone!" Sorry, but no, you cannot.

Jesus fuck I wish just one of our legislators were able to understand the most basic things about computers and the internet. RIAA (BPI over here) etc can get away with this shit because the lawmakers are too Luddite to realize that were a similar extortion racket operated in real life, e.g. business representatives accusing a random person of theft and then taking reimbursement for stolen items without proof of theft at a wildly marked up value, they'd shit bricks at the ridiculous laws they've been swindled into passing.

Agreed. Unfortunately, most of those 80+ year old people we have in the Senate and House are too old to realize exactly how computers work, and still think it's the old "You can trace it just like a phone!" Sorry, but no, you cannot.

I agree with both of you but your missing one point that is important for laws currently and in the future. Even the youngest of the lawmakers, politicians, government officials, etc. are still one of the following: Way to stupid to understand the technology to any reasonable degree (even though 4 year old generally have a better grasp of how these things work), way to greedy (payoffs/bribes/etc), they are in bed with the corporations prior to getting into their current positions, they are corrupt before and it gets worse after they come into office, etc........

Age isn't necessarily the problem (ignorance, stupidity, greed, corruption, etc). For once I wish it would be possible for some lawmaker/gov. official to stand up and actually work for the people that elected them in the first place instead of just working for the corporations. Maybe one day we will be able to ditch the sense of entitlement that all copyright holders / music/movie makers /etc have had for the past 30+ years. Reform actually needs to happen but nobody will just stand up to do it (probably because it may end there career), but still it needs to happen.